As the number of users viewing information and purchasing items electronically increases, there is a corresponding increase in the amount of advertising revenue spent in electronic environments. In some cases, advertisements are specifically selected for certain pages or other interfaces displayed to a user. In other cases, these advertisements are selected based on content that can be displayed in any of a number of different pages. For example, a user might search for information about a keyword through a search engine. When a results page is returned to the user that includes search results relating to that keyword, at least one advertisement can be included with the results page that relates to the keyword and/or search results. Often, the advertisement includes a hypertext link or other user-selectable element that enables the user to navigate to another page or display relating to the advertisement.
The selection of the content to include with the advertisement, such as text, graphics, audio, and/or video for the advertisement, as well as the page to which the user may navigate (hereinafter referred to as the “landing page”), is determined such that the user viewing the advertisement on the search results page not only will be interested in following the link, but in the case of advertising an item, also will be likely to buy or otherwise consume the advertised item. An advertiser also must consider other factors, such as how much to spend for each advertisement. Conventional systems for determining bid amounts are relatively static, and suggest default bid prices based on factors such as category or item type. These bid prices are typically used for extended periods of time, and are only occasionally updated as a result of business campaigns, category performance, or other such reasons.
Certain advertisements, however, perform differently at certain times, in certain areas, etc. For example, children's toys might sell well in the morning hours or mid-day, but may not sell very well at night, such that the conversion rate or revenue for toy ads varies drastically by time of day. As another example, snow shoes might generate a significantly larger amount of revenue in Canada as compared to Mexico, although the actual conversion rate per ad displayed might actually be higher in Mexico. Grill-related items might sell better on the weekends in all areas, etc. Accordingly, it can be desirable to spend more advertising budget at those times and places where the ad is performing well, and less at other times. While some providers allow for the opportunity to adjust bids at certain points in the day, the determination of which bids to adjust and the amount to adjust at various times for large numbers of ads can be impractical using existing systems, which often require manual intervention or rely on averages or other imprecise data to attempt to adjust bid pricing.